1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a white balance control technique for a system composed of an electronic camera and a printer. Further, the present invention relates to an image pickup device, an image processing device, an image processing system, an image processing method, and an image processing program. In particular, the present invention relates to an image pickup device which outputs an image and information on correction of the image in association with each other to control correction of the image executed by an external image processing device, and an image processing device which corrects an image on the basis of information on correction of an image.
2. Description of the Related Art
In automatic white balance (AWB) executed by an electronic camera, the type of a light source is determined on the basis of information from an external white balance (WB) sensor, which determines color temperature, or a CCD image sensor, so as to execute white balance adjustment suitable for the determined light source (Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2000-224608). The basis of AWB is that a gray object is photographed as a gray image under a photographing light source. However, some types of electronic cameras provide such control that AWB correction is weakened depending on the determined type of the light source in order to allow the atmosphere of the light source in that scene to remain in the image. For example, if an image is captured under a tungsten light source, then to allow the impression of the scene to remain in the image, slightly weakened white balance is executed to allow the gray part of the image to remain reddish.
On the other hand, when an image captured by an electronic camera is printed, a printer also executes an AWB process. The AWB process executed by the printer is often set in order to correct an image with an AWB error committed by the electronic camera during image-capturing.
However, if a print is created using a combination of the “electronic camera having the AWB function of allowing the atmosphere of a light source to remain in an image” and the “printer executing the AWB process” as described above, then the following disadvantage results: an image signal obtained as a result of image pickup executed by the electronic camera does not undergo such a WB process as allows the atmosphere of the light source in that scene to remain in the image, but the printer determines that this image has a WB error and creates a print in which the atmosphere of the light source is negated.
Conventionally, common digital cameras have a function of correcting chromaticity or brightness of a captured image on the basis of a pre-shipment setting or a user's setting. Further, the digital camera displays a captured image on an LCD monitor thereof. Then, a user can manually adjust the chromaticity or brightness of the image while viewing the image displayed on the LCD monitor. Further, image processing devices such as monitors or printers are utilized which automatically correct the chromaticity or brightness of an image obtained from a digital camera on the basis of a pre-shipment setting or a user's setting.
However, even if the user manually adjusts the chromaticity or brightness of the image while viewing the image displayed on the LCD monitor of the digital camera, the image processing device such as a monitor or a printer or the like may automatically correct the image contrary to the user's intention and output the corrected image.